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Write-to-Learn Math: Creative Writing Activities

Connect learning to other disciplines by integrating one of these five creative writing activities into your math class.
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Write to Learn Math:
Creative Writing Activities
 
Creative math writing can facilitate practice and play with math concepts in novel ways. Activities can be short- or long-term assignments. Either way, they will be fun and insightful for your students (and for you).
 
Math Talk
Assign a list of current math vocabulary words to be incorporated into a paragraph or math journal entry.
 
Missing Numbers Stories
Ask students to write a story that incorporates a variety of numbers. After your students have written the paragraph, have them turn their paragraph into a puzzle by writing a new version of the paragraph with blanks where each number appears. Have the students include a table with the numbers used at the top of the paragraph, then exchange paragraphs with partners, and try to place each number in its correct place in the paragraph. This can be a beneficial activity when your students are studying or reviewing rational numbers or the set of real numbers. If desired, you can tell your students that they must include an integer, a fraction, a decimal, a percent, and an irrational number in their story.
 
Word Puzzles
Have your students create a word puzzle with vocabulary words for their current chapter (this can be a great summary activity for the end of a chapter). Students should create word puzzles such as crosswords or word jumbles that require them to write clues. This will ensure that students are applying their knowledge of the math terms, such as definitions and examples.
 
Poetry
Writing and sharing poems is a popular way for middle school and high school students to share ideas and feelings. The creative process involved in writing poetry requires students to apply their understanding of math concepts to the task. Your students may enjoy presenting their poetry in a "Math Poetry Slam" event for other classes. A fun and easy poetry assignment is to have your students write haiku poems for geometric solids. (Haiku, and its three line, five syllable, seven syllable, five syllable format is quite appropriate for a math activity!) Take this haiku, for example:
Triangular Prism
Five faces, all flat
Your straight edges count to nine
Triangles—a must!
 
Advice Columns
Have students write fictitious advice columns, as one might find in a newspaper, except these are math advice columns. Have your students think of math-related names to use for their advice column, for example "Dear Algy" (short for algorithm), or "Dear Doctor Pi." You can either assign a topic for the advice column, or ask students to create math situations when someone might need advice, such as "I keep getting my cosine confused with my tangent” or "I can't remember how to find the slope of a line."
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